


always, always, always on my mind

by heyfightme



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Black Mirror AU, Blind Date, Dystopia, First Meetings, M/M, One Night Stands, Online Dating, Science Fiction, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13427076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyfightme/pseuds/heyfightme
Summary: “This is your first Match?” The thought makes Jack’s stomach flop over uncomfortably.Eric hums, wrinkling his nose. “My birthday was yesterday. I wasn’t expecting a date this quickly, but I suppose it’s good to get things rolling.”Jack could say,This is my thirty-fifth Match. Jack could say,My first Match was my longest. Jack could even say,Imagine if you got your Life Partner on your first go.What he says instead, through a smirk, is, “We should sit down. It’s good to get things rolling, eh?”The app is ubiquitous, a dating service that dictates the type and length of every relationship it finds for its users. For Jack Zimmermann, it hasn't been a real problem - until he is Matched with Eric Bittle for a week-long fling, and is left feeling like he's missing out on something bigger.





	always, always, always on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely based on the _Black Mirror_ episode 'Hang the DJ.'

 

> _You're always on my mind, instilled in my heart_  
>  _You're always on my mind although we are apart_  
>  _You're always, you're always, always on my mind_  
>  _And baby, the reason why I know I can't forget your face_  
>  _'Cause everywhere I go, I see you every place  
>  _ _You're always, you're always, always on my mind._
> 
> \- Sam Cooke, '[You're Always On My Mind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CizmrHgmLvU)'

 

The wax in Jack’s hair makes the tips of his fingers sticky when he touches it, so he’s trying to keep his fidgeting hands occupied by other things: his cutlery, polished and unblemished and easily smudged; the knee of his jeans, rough though starting to bear a tiny hole; his phone. The face of his date smiles up at him from the screen, unguardedly sunny. Optimistic. In the hours since Jack had received the notification of their meeting, he has looked at the photo perhaps a hundred times. The subject is on the young side – just on twenty-one, probably. New to the app. For Jack, it’s been five years. Not a _long_ five years, just… five years.

 

His date’s photo seems to leak excitement. Brows drawn up hopefully, bright brown eyes, flushed cheeks. Styled hair. In Jack’s photo, his hair isn’t styled. It was taken before he got it cut, and so it hangs in loose curtains around his forehead. That was almost a year ago; he’s due another photo, soon. Just a few months.

 

 

“Jack?”

The voice eases into his thoughts, uptick at the end of the word betraying nerves and, again, that hopefulness. Jack snaps his head up, eyes shifting from the static photo on his phone to the real thing in front of him. Bright brown eyes. Flushed cheeks. Styled hair. Full bottom lip, caught between teeth.

 

Jack stands, abrupt.

“Hi. Hello. Eric?”

He extends his hand, which Eric clasps in his own at the same time his expression explodes into an unmistakably joyful smile. It’s so unrestrained; Jack can see the slight overlap in Eric’s two front teeth, the one-sided dimple, the way his cheeks fill out and his eyes scrunch up.

“Thank god,” Eric’s saying, still grasping Jack’s hand, “I was frettin’ something fierce over talking to the wrong guy, let me tell you.” He laughs, trilling and light, and this isn’t even a handshake any more – they’re just standing in a restaurant, holding hands.

 

Jack clears his throat.

“Uh, you – you didn’t check my photo?” He presses his newly-released hand against his thigh, unconsciously. His palm is tingling, like pins and needles. Maybe it’s in his head.

“I did, of course I did. I like your hair like this, by the way. It suits your face.” Eric gestures to his own jawline as he says it, and Jack follows the movement across the fine lines of his bones. “Just first-time nerves, maybe. Getting stuck in my head that I’m going to do something wrong.”

“This is your first Match?” The thought makes Jack’s stomach flop over uncomfortably.

Eric hums, wrinkling his nose. “My birthday was yesterday. I wasn’t expecting a date this quickly, but I suppose it’s good to get things rolling.”

                                                                                                                                        

Jack could say, _This is my thirty-fifth Match_. Jack could say, _My first Match was my longest so far_. Jack could even say, _Imagine if you got your Life Partner on your first go_.

 

What he says instead, through a smirk, is, “We should sit down. It’s good to get things rolling, eh?”

 

Their table is a small two-seater, and Jack feels conscious of the length of his legs beneath its surface. He could, should they get to the right point in the evening, easily rest his knees against Eric’s. Could easily touch their feet together, more suggestive than insistent. Above the table, Eric’s hand lies next to his cutlery as he scoops up his menu with the other. Jack could, just as easily, reach out and clasp it in his own.

 

They haven’t even ordered. They haven’t even checked the app for their Category. He’s getting ahead of himself.

 

“This is an interesting selection,” Eric comments, and Jack hums agreement without thought. “Did they just pick a dish from every country they could think of? It’s all very _trendy_ , I suppose. Ooh, quail.”

Jack snatches up his own menu, staring at the print without registering anything beyond types of protein: chicken, salmon, quinoa.

“I haven’t been here before,” he confesses. “A friend of mine, she met a Match here. Said the pasta was nice.” He doesn’t look up, but Eric tuts a laugh.

“Should I ask what their Category was? Is this a Long-Term kind of restaurant, or a Fling sort of place?” He laughs again, and Jack can’t help but answer him with a chuckle. He doesn’t say that it was a first date between Life Partners.

 

Eric does order the quail, and Jack orders the salmon, and neither of them make a move towards the drinks menu.

“I’m trying to be a good boy,” Eric says conspiratorially, dropping Jack a wink that makes a hot pressure push into his cheeks. “I know I should be living it up, freshly twenty-one and all, but I said this year I’d be healthy: less sugar, more jogging. No alcohol.”

“I don’t drink,” Jack tells him, and it’s the first time the revelation has felt like social currency. “I’m a trainer. _Lots_ of jogging.”

One of Eric’s brows raises, and his lips quirk in an ironic way. “Maybe that’s our Category; you’re here to whip me into shape.”

“You seem plenty in shape already.”

Eric’s mouth forms a small _o_ of surprise, fleeting and sweet, before falling again into that luminous smile.

“My, my. What a line.”

Jack shrugs, reaching to take a sip from his water glass. “Well, I’m in for… whatever length haul the app sets for us.”

Eric giggles at that too, though Jack’s rush of accomplishment is dammed in its path when he carefully takes out his phone and places it on the table. Jack feels the familiar swoop of trepidation, and mirrors Eric’s action.

 

“I’m sorry,” Eric says through a self-deprecating wince, drumming blunt fingernails across his phone’s screen, “I’m probably being too eager. How long can I use the excuse of this being my first Match?”

Jack wants to hold his hand again. He settles for replying, “I get it. It’s fine.”

 

“Okay. Should I…?”

Eric swipes into the app, and Jack sees his own face flash up momentarily. It’s gone as Eric flicks through to the next screen, and then Jack’s own phone is lighting up:

 

_ERIC BITTLE has requested to Categorize your Relationship. ACCEPT?_

 

His hesitation can’t be obvious to Eric; it’s a bare millisecond, a tick of hovering over the button before he presses it. The _YES_ flashes green under his finger, and the screen is filled with the circling vortex of a loading screen.

 

Jack chances a glance up to Eric, and finds himself being watched through a lidded gaze. He attempts a genial smile, but it probably seems more like a grimace. Eric’s cheeks darken, and Jack is momentarily fascinated by how expressive the whole of him seems: the willingness of his smile; the fluidity of his gestures; the coloring of his skin. He is honest, to the bone. The thought gives Jack the feeling of holding an ice block in his mouth on a hot day.

 

Eric blinks down to looking at his phone, and his eyebrows raise and his mouth makes that small _o_ again. Jack snaps his gaze back to his own screen, and his throat is a desert.

 

_Your Relationship with ERIC BITTLE is A FLING._

_Duration: 1 week_

 

 

Eric lets out an audible breath.

“Well!” His tone is cheerful, and when Jack looks up to him he has already tucked his phone back in his pocket. “It’s a good way to start things, I suppose. Imagine having something Long Term, first Match out!”

Jack doesn’t need to imagine. He knows how that pans out: falling fast, crashing hard, and ending the Relationship unable to look at each other.

“Let’s Fling this thing.” He holds his water glass up for Eric to cheers, and downs the whole thing in one gulp. His throat is still dry.

 

Eric talks through dinner. He gestures with his fork, and when a piece of quail flies off it and lands in the honey garlic sauce covering Jack’s salmon, Jack’s laughter gets every head in the restaurant turning in their direction. Eric chastises him with faux-stern _shush_ es, and pointedly spears his next mouthful off his plate.

 

He listens carefully as Jack speaks about college, and blindly feeds himself through Jack’s disjointed ramblings about playing golf with his dad, and laughs without discrimination at even the flattest of Jack’s jokes. He gives as good as he gets, quipping back sharp and direct as a needle, and as he tells story after story about post-college job hunting, Jack can’t look away from the shapes his lips make.

 

With empty dishes whisked away, and a request for the dessert menus coming through, Jack relaxes his legs under the table and hooks a foot around Eric’s ankle. He gets another blush for his troubles, and another delighted smile, and Eric says, “Well now, Mr. Zimmermann.” Jack schools his face into a would-be-innocent expression that Eric clearly doesn’t buy any of, and says back, “I’m Flinging.”

 

They split a flourless orange cake, and Eric is properly shy for the first time as he offers Jack a bite from his own fork.

 

Standing out on the street, it’s maybe an unseasonable chill, or the thrill of anticipation, that has Eric shivering before Jack’s eyes.

 

Jack leans towards him, asks, “So, your place or mine?” and Eric is saying, “Yours. Please, yours,” before the question has fully passed his lips. It’s a short walk, but they barely make it a block before Eric loops his arm through Jack’s, tucking into his side. Jack can smell his cologne, woodsy and rain-fresh, with the barest hint of something spiced.

 

“My dad used to tell me,” Jack murmurs as they walk, “about dates, and how hard it was to pick a place to go. You didn’t want somewhere too close to your place, or they might get the wrong idea, and you didn’t want somewhere too far away in case it went bad.”

Eric whistles, a suitably overwhelmed sound.

“That tension is something I don’t even want to think about. Not knowing where the Relationship is going, having to talk about it and define it - those nerves! It would’ve been so hard. I’m so proud of my parents, for sticking it through.”

Jack hums. “The way it used to be, it’s a wonder anyone found each other.”

 

“I was a little surprised, when the Location Suggestion came through. I’ve walked past that restaurant before, but never gone inside.” Eric leans into Jack’s side, and Jack pulls his arm from Eric’s grip to sling around his shoulders. He fits there, the exact right height. When Eric responds by snaking his own arm around Jack’s waist, it feels natural. “I’m about a ten-minute walk, back that way –” Eric jerks his free hand to indicate the way they had just come, and Jack looks behind them instinctively – “and it was this nice moment of, ‘well, that’s convenient.’ I have a friend who got in a Serious with this girl who lived on the opposite side of the city. It was set for nine months, and they spent most of the time arguing about who was going to do the travelling.” Eric titters good-naturedly, and Jack huffs his own chuckle despite the harsh reminder: sixth months spent with a girl uptown, barely a word exchanged, rough sex through which neither of them looked at each other. “I told him he’d set his radius too wide, but then I went and did the same thing. Could’ve ended up with a date that took me three hours to get to.”

 

“This is me.” They’ve ambled up on Jack’s apartment building, the white-blue light of the lobby casting a sort of pale illumination over Eric’s face. His eyelashes are honey-blond, had been barely visible in the low light of the restaurant, but here with the fluorescent glow catching on them – long. Beautiful.

 

“Fancy,” Eric comments, casting Jack a look through those lashes that is at once joking and, inescapably, endearing.

“It does the job.”

 

On the ride up in the elevator, Eric sings along to the music, under his breath. Jack watches his mouth, and smiles at the soft sound of his voice, and sweeps his own tongue over his lips.

 

“ _Fancy_ ,” Eric says again on entering Jack’s apartment, eyes drawn to the view out the window: the city, dark and indiscernible, but punctured by rogue lights. “Very minimalist.”

Looking around at his own furniture and decorations, Jack supposes he’s right. Couches and tables, square-edged; black-framed impersonal photographs on the walls; muted tones, greys and beiges. Even to his own perception, he may have just moved in. He hasn’t even put up a photo of his parents. He clears his throat, and just says, “Yeah. I don’t like clutter.”

 

Eric chuckles softly, and moves to the window.

“I came to the city after college because I dreamed of a view like this. Looking out at everyone, seein’ the busyness, and the lights… Who knows what would’ve happened if I’d gone back home? I could be on some farm right now, starting a Fling with a guy who chews tobacco and smells like stale beer.”

Jack pictures Eric standing in a field of wheat, sun beating down on him, cast in shades of gold. He pictures columns of houses crawling in kudzu, and Eric sitting on a porch with a glass of sweet tea. He pictures everything hinted by Eric’s voice – the length and round of his vowels, the syllables added to the words, the forgotten g’s and the unfamiliar expressions.

 

He doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t say anything about his own _back home_ – Montréal’s cobbled streets, passing underneath the city when it’s laid deep in snow, shorts and t-shirts pulled out too early in the year to make the most of scant warmth. He just sidles up to Eric by the window, and traces fingers over the close-cropped hairs at the base of Eric’s neck. He trails his touch up, to where the shaved part of Eric’s hair gives way to length, one lock in particular breaking from the careful style. Jack smooths the cowlick down, and Eric turns to look at him.

“You’re an excellent date, Jack,” Eric says.

“You too,” Jack replies, and leans down to kiss him on the mouth.

 

Eric sighs against his lips, hands coming up to grasp at the collar of Jack’s shirt, pushing their bodies together and aligning the planes of them. Jack holds him, feeling fire in his fingers, one hand cupped around the sweet slope of Eric’s jaw, and the other fitted into the sway of his back. Eric punctuates kisses with his tongue and teeth, licking and nipping, pulling Jack’s breaths from him harsher and sharper. Jack’s lips feel full of blood, and when he responds with his own tongue, thrusting and massaging and trying to get more at Eric’s warmth, he is desperate.

 

Eric makes tiny, unconscious noises, back-of-the-throat noises, small snippets of moans that break through the loudness of their breaths. Jack seeks them out: he pulls Eric tighter, paws at the muscles of his ass, drags his lips from mouth to jaw to neck. Eric fists a hand in Jack’s hair, and when Jack scrapes his teeth over the thin skin of Eric’s collarbone, Eric pulls.

 

Jack will drink in every inch of him.

 

He has a week – a week of hoisting Eric up by his thighs, of feeling their strength lock around his own waist, of carrying Eric by muscle-memory to his own bedroom. He has a week of lowering Eric to the bed, of almost dropping him and getting Eric to laugh, breathlessly, “ _Jack_!” as admonition and approval. He has a week of these tastes, of the salt of Eric’s skin and the warmth of his mouth. He has a week of Eric’s soft cries that can be plied out by deft touches, of Eric gasping into his ear, of choked-off moans and bitten lips and, again, Jack’s name at every volume, in every kind of plea and praise.

 

Jack has a week.

 

* * *

 

Jack’s apartment smells like eggs when he wakes, and is filled with thin strains of music. His body meets it with a clenched heart and fluttering stomach. After pulling on a pair of sweats, Jack does something he has never done before breakfast: he checks his hair in the mirror.

 

In the kitchen, Eric is wearing little more than his boxer-briefs, and is swaying along to Sam Cooke as he tends to something in a fry-pan. Jack leans against the fridge, and watches Eric’s hips circle, slow and delicious, in time with the tune.

 

Eric turns off the hob, picks up the pan, and spins around as he loftily sings, “ _everywhere I go, I see you every place,_ ” which cuts off in a yelp as he finds Jack staring at him.

 

“Jack! Morning. Good morning.”

“Carry on,” Jack says through a smirk, raising a brow as suggestively as he can and folding his arms across his bare chest. He is rewarded by color high in Eric’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry; I’ve just made myself right at home, haven’t I? I got woken by my stomach roarin’ like anything, and I figured if I was so hungry, you would be too.” He gestures with the fry pan, which Jack notices is filled with pale and fluffy scrambled eggs. Waiting on the counter are two plates, already laden with buttered toast. “You’ve got the same music taste as my Moo Maw, by the way.”

“What?”

If possible, Eric blushes deeper. “My Moo Maw. Grandmother. All my cousins call her Mee Maw, but I got to calling her Moo Maw so young that it just stuck.”

“So you’re saying I have the music taste of an old Southern woman?”

“The _oldest_ ,” Eric jokes, tossing Jack another of those winks. It puts something settled in the pit of Jack’s stomach, and makes him cross the room to tug the pan from Eric’s grip and pull him against Jack’s body.

 

“Good morning,” Jack says pointedly, just to make Eric smile. It works. “And thank you. For breakfast, not for making fun of my CD collection.”

“That’s another thing,” Eric retorts, laying warm palms over Jack’s ribs. “CDs? Really? You do realize it’s not 1999, right?”

“What? Next you’re gonna tell me no one watches music videos on MTV anymore.”

Eric wrinkles his nose through a snorted laugh that turns to a squawk of protests as Jack bends to hoist him over his shoulder.

“The eggs will spoil,” Eric protests through more giggles.

“Flings are spontaneous. I’m just following the Rules.”

 

When he kneels between Eric’s legs after seating him on the couch, and keeps his eyes locked on Eric’s face all through sucking him off, it’s only because Flings are supposed to be _fun_. Jack is just trying to make sure that Eric is having _fun_. If the way Eric shouts his name when he comes is any indication, Jack is more than doing his job.

 

* * *

 

Jack has a week. Rather, they have a week. Jack and Eric have a week.

 

They go to work, and meet up at the end of each day. Eric takes Jack to a food truck that serves cups of mac and cheese. Jack takes Eric to a bar that projects unknown old movies onto a wall, and plays 80s music. Eric takes Jack down an alleyway and into a basement where there are Drag Kings performing as Elvis and Bobby Darin and Frankie Valli. Jack takes Eric to an indoor ice rink, and almost can’t get his throat to swallow properly as Eric loops graceful circles around him faster than Jack can keep track of.

 

They go to Jack’s apartment. They fuck on nearly every surface, through laughter and frantic moans, and sometimes quiet and slow. Once, Jack presses Eric up against the window, and they both come staring out at the lights of the city.

 

They talk. Endlessly, Eric talks – about the South, about college, about why he can skate so well. Jack finds himself talking too. He does end up telling Eric about Montréal, about the maple candy of wintertime and jogging around painfully monolingual tourists in the summer. He laughs at Eric’s accent as he tries to repeat some French phrases – swear words and cooking terms and thinly-disguised compliments. He makes uncharacteristic monologues about his father and his own ambitions and why he likes being a trainer.

“You can succeed,” he tells Eric, who looks back at him with dark eyes that blink molasses slow, “and it’s not all on your own back. It’s partnership; you do right by someone, and they do right by you.”

Eric nods like he understands, and he lets Jack think as long as he needs to before the words come.

 

Jack learns Eric. He fills in the gaps in his own mind, builds a cavern full of Eric and still wants room for more. He learns more than he has through months in a Serious.

 

It’s a Fling, they say. It’s spontaneous. It’s fun. It’s a week.

 

After six days, they lie above the sheets in Jack’s bedroom.

“I tried to sign up, when I was eighteen,” Eric whispers into the dark of the room, sounding close and also everywhere all at once. Jack reaches out blindly to touch him – any part of him – and waits.

 

“I went to college, and I thought, ‘this is it.’ I was going to grow up and live the life my parents didn’t ever talk about.” His hand clasps over Jack’s, so Jack flips his palm-up and laces their fingers as best he can. It’s an uncomfortable tangle, but it is secure. “I downloaded the app, and put in all my details, and fudged my date of birth. And then it asked for my fingerprint, and I chickened out. I’d heard things, about them contacting parents of minors who tried to get on the register before their time. So I just went to a bunch of mixers instead. Lots of seniors having their last hurrah before the big two-one.”

Jack has nothing to say. He squeezes Eric’s hand instead.

 

When he rolls his head on the pillow to look, he is being watched, Eric’s eyes huge and black, visible only by the night lights coming through the open window.

“I want to thank you.” Before Jack can brush it off in protests, Eric lays tender fingers over his mouth. “Just – for making the start of this so good. For listening. For being great in bed.” A smile twitches around his mouth. “For being…” His fingertips brush Jack’s lips, delicate and careful, and Eric sucks his own bottom lip into his mouth before letting it go, red and shiny. “For being a fun Fling,” he finishes decisively, but Jack hears something else beneath the words.

 

Jack rolls over him, and makes his movements deliberate. He has one intent: to love Eric, until the sky is too light and they can’t see the stars any more.

 

* * *

 

They part with a fist bump to make Eric laugh, a hug where Eric squeezes Jack’s shoulders harder than anything, and a kiss to Eric’s cheek that Jack holds for a second too long. Within an hour of Jack confirming their Break Up on the app, it pings with another Match.

 

He goes on a date to a bar with a redheaded girl who is almost his height. Their Relationship gets categorized as a One Night Stand, and she tells him a funny story about a Serious Relationship she had with a masseuse who would give her deep-tissue massages every night.

“I’d come home from work, and he’d have all these oils set up. Glass of wine, soft music. It was like living in a day spa; fucking heaven, I shit you not. I was tempted to be like, ‘look, fuck the app. I’ll straight up pay you to be my Life Partner!’ Those fucking miracle fingers, Jesus Christ.”

It’s funny to joke about – _fuck the app!_ – and so Jack laughs, as loud as he dares. It’s a joke, only a joke, and he needs the bartender to know that: they are a Match, this is a date, and _fuck the app_ is only a joke.

 

Later, the redhead swears like a frat bro when she comes as well, Jack having shown her what his own _fucking miracle fingers_ can do, and she high-fives him when he leaves her apartment. He had a good time, but he still jerks himself off in his own bed, to flashing thoughts of flushed skin and honey hair.

 

There are two more One Night Stands, and a three-week Fling that has Jack counting down the seconds because the guy will only talk about stocks. He gets a one-month Serious that he tricks his way through by being quiet and pretending to listen, and the girl calls him a “nice boy” with tears in her eyes when they part ways.

 

Jack lets out a sigh of relief that had been building over days and weeks when Camilla’s face pops up as his next Match. He taps through the Location Suggestion as the KFC he knows is exactly halfway between their apartments, and the Confirmation comes through almost immediately.

 

She all but throws herself into the booth across from him when she arrives, pulling the box of chicken pieces towards herself before he can so much as offer a greeting.

“Man, you have _no idea_ how relieved I was when your damn mug popped up today.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” Jack pushes the fries towards her as well, and opens a sachet of mayonnaise which she takes off him and squeezes over everything. When she’s done, he takes a fry for himself.

 

Camilla sighs around a mouthful of chicken, eyes blissfully closed. When she swallows and opens them finally, she offers Jack a grin.

“Hi. Thank you. I’m sorry – it _is_ good to see you. You’ve got no idea,” she says again, and Jack chuckles.

“I get it. Eat,” he tells her, picking up his soda and taking a long gulp.

 

Through half-chewed food, leaning on one hand and feeding herself indiscriminately with the other, she relays her recent past.

“It’s just been dipshit after dipshit, and all short stuff. I feel like I’ve had sex with half the city, at this point. I’m just cycling, going through the motions. I’m not even changing my date outfits anymore.”

“Putting in so much effort.” Jack raises a mocking eyebrow at her haphazard ponytail and gym clothes, and she flips him a casual bird.

“You have no idea how easy you have it. I haven’t even had anything long enough where I can stop waxing my entire body. I’ve been hairless from the neck down for _months_ , Jack. My pubes are a distant memory. It’s unnatural.”

He snorts, and leans back against the booth. There had been a feeling around his throat, something tight and restrictive. It’s only now that it’s loosening, that he notices it was there at all.

 

“I didn’t shower today, so you know. Broke Up with a Serious, and I’ve been sleeping all day. In this shirt, actually. You should be grateful I put on pants for you.”

“Lucky me.” She shoves a fistful of fries into her mouth, and lets out another sigh. “Can we not do sex? I don’t know how any more. I’ve done too much and it’s lost the magic.”

Jack laughs, and it feels normal. Friendly. Easy.

“We should check our Category. You might not even have a chance to grow any stubble back in.”

She sighs again, sending a chunk of potato across the table, but takes her phone out of her pocket.

“Alright, go.”

 

Jack sends the Categorization Request, Camilla taps the Acceptance, and both their phones fill with the loading screen.

 

_Your Relationship with CAMILLA COLLINS is CASUAL._

_Duration: 4 months_

 

Camilla crows a noise of triumph, and Jack breathes out long and deep.

“Awesome. Thank fuck.” He chuckles weakly, scraping a hand down his face. “Shit, that’s good to know.” He laughs again, sinking lower in the booth and grinning at Camilla across the table. She’s eyeing him with a raised eyebrow, and takes a significant sip of her soda. Behind her, a KFC cashier is watching them.

“Alright, well, at some point you’re going to tell me what _that_ was about. But now, you gotta just watch me eat. Shut up. I don’t even want to think about being on a date.”

 

They do eat in silence, and decide to go back to Camilla’s apartment – with both being equidistant, the only real factor at play is that Jack doesn’t want to go back to his own. Camilla natters about her wandering kneecap flaring up again, and Jack waxes philosophical about a new kind of protein powder he’s trying. In her apartment, she throws an armful of blankets and pillows on the couch, and trots off to her bedroom without more than a “goodnight.”

 

Jack breathes, and sleeps, and dreams about his own kitchen and Sam Cooke playing from an unseen source to the empty room, even after he switches off the stereo.

 

* * *

 

Some days, Jack comes home from work to find Camilla lounging outside the building. When he doesn’t, he goes up and showers before walking over to her place. They go to the gym a lot, and Jack helps Camilla strengthen her knees. They watch a lot of old TV, _Breaking Bad_ and _The Wire_ , and they eat a lot of chicken, and they don’t touch each other until, a month and a half in, they’re sitting on Jack’s couch and Camilla says, “Want a blow job?” and Jack says, “Sure, why not.”

 

She’s good at it, like she always has been, and he eats her out in return. At one point, she flicks his forehead and says, “Watch your teeth, Zimmermann,” and he has to turn his face into her thigh to smother his laughter.

 

They spend some afternoons just making out, because Jack likes her weight on top of him. Like everything they do, it’s lazy: no urgency, just friendly simplicity and a way to pass the time together. What Camilla likes is card games, and she beats Jack at every hand.

 

It’s over a spread of poker, fruity Mentos being used as chips, that Jack decides to tell her about Eric.

“Have you had something like that? Where you just… I don’t know. I can’t let it go. I keep thinking about him.”

She hums, throws three yellow Mentos in for her bet, and says, “Sounds tragic, man.”

“Don’t you think… I mean, we’ve been together a lot. This is, what, our fourth time? Fifth? It’s been different every time. It’s always Casual, sure, but it’s getting longer. Camilla.” Jack says her name because she’s not looking at him, is instead intent on fingering her pile of Mentos. When she does finally turn her gaze up, her eyes are wide. Wary. Pitying, almost.

“I don’t know, Jack. I sometimes think the app uses you like my palate cleanser. It knows we’re not anything huge, but it also feels it when I’m getting restless. It’s just the algorithm. The data, or whatever, keeping us in line.” It’s the closest that Camilla has ever gotten to talking about the power of the app, at least in Jack’s presence. She pops a pink Mentos into her mouth, seemingly without thought. Crunching down, she chews for a few moments, and a frown forms between her brows. “I think we luck out with it, man. I know a lot of people who never get _any_ double-ups. It’s rare.” Her tone has gone gentle, and Jack can hear what she’s really saying: _You’re never going to see him again. You’re in this Relationship because you need to let him go._

“You’re right,” Jack says. “You’re right,” he repeats, tone more audibly resigned the second time, and tosses in three yellow Mentos and a green one as his own bet.

 

* * *

 

After four months, Jack and Camilla Break Up, and she holds his head in a vice-like grip as he tries to stop her from licking a wet path from his chin to his forehead.

“You’re disgusting and I hope we never Match again,” he tells her seriously, then pulls her into a headlock and pushes her nose into his armpit.

 

She walks away laughing, and he waves sarcastically when she looks back to give him the finger. Jack goes back up to his apartment, and is taking a shower when his phone pings with a new Match.

 

* * *

 

Jack goes on dates. There are One Night Stands, and Flings, and Casual Relationships that never exceed a month. Jack uses his yearly two-month Pause quota to go home for the holidays, as a lot of people do, and then January cycles past in a blur of Matches. He spends each week of February with someone else, March passes in the quiet company of a tall and kind man who shows Jack how to meditate, and April is split between suffering the attentions of a girl with no volume control on her voice, and a guy who takes no pains to hide his assessment that Jack is a complete idiot jock.

 

In early May, Jack’s phone reminds him of Eric’s birthday, and gives him a new Match, on the same day.

 

The app _knows_ , surely. It knows.

 

* * *

 

Jack walks quicker than normal, and he’s already half an hour early. He figures he’ll order a tea or something, chamomile or lavender, something to still his jittering nerves. That’s the plan, to try to calm himself in the thirty minutes he has before the date, but then his eyes land on a tousle of blond hair at the end of the block ahead, and the figure it belongs to calls out, “Jack!” before darting towards him with unprecedented speed. Jack breaks into a matching run.

 

He and Eric collide outside the restaurant, Jack scooping him into the air on impact and swinging him around to giddy laughter. He smells just as Jack remembered: wood, and rain, and spice, clean and sultry, and Jack buries his nose as deep as he can in Eric’s scarf. He doesn’t let go even with Eric’s feet back on the ground, just holds him tight and breathes him in, feeling him warm and solid and close and real beneath Jack’s hands.

“Jack,” Eric says again, making the word a happy sigh. “My Jack. You’re here.”

Jack pulls back, and says through an unrestrained grin, “I’m so lucky to get to see you again.”

Eric rolls his eyes through a blush, swats lightly at Jack’s arm, and replies, “You charmer,” like there hasn’t been a year between them.

 

Eric holds Jack’s hand above the table, and Jack hooks their feet below it, and while Eric’s cheeks are recklessly red, Jack’s feel hot as well. He says, over and over, “wow,” and, “this is amazing,” and, “you’re amazing,” and his heart feels fast. He pulls Eric’s hand to his mouth and lays kisses over his wrist, and Eric blinks at him like he doesn’t know what he’s seeing.

“My friends all told me matching with someone again was so rare, that I had no chance. That I should give up, and let the app work.” Eric’s voice is lowered to a murmur, and he leans across the table as he grasps Jack’s hand between both of his own. Jack can’t look away from his eyes – how big they are, how dark. How, up close, even the dull light of the restaurant can’t hide his lashes. “I almost did something stupid. I almost went to your apartment – in August, because I knew it was your birthday. I almost left my Relationship, and went to see you.”

 

Jack stares at him. Leaving a Relationship, tracking down an old Match – it’s more than stupid. It’s against the Rules.

“You can’t do that,” Jack admonishes quietly, leaning closer and gripping Eric’s forearm with his free hand. “If they found out – Eric, you can’t do that. Not for me.”

“I only wanted to see you,” Eric hisses, expression gone hard and defensive. Jack rubs a circle into the soft skin of his inner elbow, using his thumb. Eric’s eyes slide shut briefly, and when they open again, they are tender. “I just wanted some more time. I felt like we didn’t have enough time.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says. “I know. I know.” He squeezes Eric’s hand, and pulls back entirely to pry his phone from his pocket. “Should we check?”

 

He sends the Categorization request, and Eric accepts, and neither of them look up as the screen loads. The Category appears, and Jack can’t say anything, or move at all, or do anything but stare at it.

 

_Your Relationship with ERIC BITTLE is LONG TERM.  
Duration: 2 years_

 

 

Jack hears something like stuttered gasping in his head, like air being dragged in, a not-unfamiliar panic response. It’s only when the sound of choked breaths gives way to an outright sob, a broken and desperate, “ _Lord_ ,” that Jack realizes he’s not making the noise; Eric is. He snaps his gaze up to see that Eric has dropped his phone to the table, and has both hands clamped over his face, barely muffling his cries.

 

Jack launches out of his seat, kneeling a little too hard on the ground next to him, muttering, “Bud, hey. It’s okay,” as he tries to pull Eric into a hug despite the awkward angle.  
“Fuck it. _Fuck_ that thing. I hate it, I –” he breaks off with another wrenching sob, this time into Jack’s shoulder, and Jack can see the wait staff have gathered near the kitchen to watch them. They’re attracting a lot of frowns, which only deepen when Eric grits out, “Fuck this _fucking app_ ,” at full volume.

 

Jack is tugging him up and towards the door without a second thought.

“Come on. We need to go. Bittle, move.”

He pulls Eric against his side and under his arm, resisting the urge to look back and see – if they’re being watched, if they’re being followed, if one of the wait staff is on the phone calling the Relationship Counsellors to report them. Eric is still crying shakily, but wraps his arm around Jack’s waist regardless.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, low and barely there, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” Jack is not the one being spoken to.

 

He all but carries Eric back to his apartment, striding as fast as he dares with Eric clinging to his side and listlessly being dragged along. He doesn’t stop until they are in his building elevator, at which point he starts to count his breaths.

 

 _In_ , through the nose _, two three four,_

 _Out_ , through the mouth, _six seven eight_.

 

 _In_ , through the nose _, two three four,_

 _Out_ , through the –

 

“I’m sorry.” Eric has stopped crying, and is looking at Jack with wide eyes and a pale face. The apology is definitely for Jack this time. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats, earnest and quiet, words and expression and tension in his body all filled with fear.

“You don’t have to be. Let’s just… get inside, and calm down, and then we can talk about it.” Jack’s gaze is drawn, irresistibly, to the black ball of the camera in the corner of the elevator. It gazes back. He tucks Eric tighter under his arm.

 

Once in the apartment, Jack coaxes Eric to take a shower while he makes them tea. It seems appropriate to follow through on his pre-date plans: chamomile or lavender, for the nerves. Jack idly dips the teabags in and out of their cups, listening to the sounds of Eric exiting the shower and opening drawers in Jack’s bedroom. It’s familiar, in the way that Jack has daydreamed years of them together and this kind of domestic moment featured heavily in all of his imaginings.

 

Eric pads into the kitchen with bare feet, swaddled in a pair of Jack’s overly-large sweats, one of his flannels hanging unbuttoned and open under Eric’s folded arms. His hair is wet, plastered down to his head, and he brings with him a whiff of Jack’s own shampoo. Jack wordlessly holds out one of the mugs, which Eric takes with a grateful smile.

 

Jack holds his own tea by the handle and wanders off to the couch, willing Eric to take the hint and follow, because he doesn’t know what words to make any more. Eric does trail after him though, settling close on the cushions and curling one leg up underneath his body, the knee of which brushes against Jack’s thigh. Jack takes it as a sign, and lays his hand broadly over it.

“Thank you,” Eric says, and it could be in reference to anything. Jakes takes it as reference to anything.

“Are you okay?”

It’s easy to ask. He can’t figure out what to say, but he can ask if Eric is okay.

 

Eric fixes him with a smile, a small and sad one, and he moves his knee more insistently against Jack’s leg.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, though more gently than he had in the elevator. “I just got… overwhelmed. This past year, it’s been –” he cuts himself off, digging teeth abruptly into his lip, seeming to be trying to literally bite back on whatever words he had been meaning to say.

“I hated it,” Jack tries, quiet and flat. “I thought about you, the whole time. I’ve never had that happen before.”

“I hated it,” Eric parrots, but as though it’s something new. “I tried to be pragmatic. We were a Fling; it couldn’t have been… I had a few others, and some One Night Stands, and it was just… cycling through guys, just one after the other, and it all meant nothing. I got Matched for a Serious, and I thought, ‘this is it. This will be fine.’ But I couldn’t stop comparing him to you. I kept so many secrets; I didn’t tell him anything. I was so unfair to him. He tried, he really did, but he ended up hating me too. It put us together for eight months. And then the months since then, all these Serious things, and I thought if I could just hold on and wait, one of them, one of them _had to be_.”

 

By the end, he’s speaking frantic and fervent, pleading with Jack with huge eyes, both hands wrapped around his mug of tea like it’s a flotation device.

“I let myself believe,” he murmurs, and Jack watches the shape of his mouth, “that this was what the app did: showed you how good it could be, and made you miss it, and then gave it back to you for forever. And I thought it, right up until we got Categorized again. I thought we were going to be Life Partners.”

“I thought so too.” Jack hasn’t put words to it until this moment, but it’s true. From first seeing Eric’s picture, he’s known what he wants.

 

Eric takes Jack’s tea from his grip with a slow movement, then leans to deposit both the cups on the coffee table, and insinuates himself across Jack’s lap without pretense.

“Let me hold you,” he murmurs, even though Jack is the one with an armful of Eric. “I thought I’d never get the chance again.”

He wraps his arms around Jack’s shoulders, and Jack wraps his arms around Eric’s middle. He pushes his face into Eric’s chest, and breathes.

 

* * *

 

Jack has two years. Rather, they have two years. Jack and Eric have two years.

 

They go to work, and meet up at the end of each day. Eric takes Jack to what he proclaims is the only good Southern food restaurant in the city. Jack takes Eric to a hole-in-the-wall that alleges to serve poutine, and complains about it the whole time. Eric takes Jack to a club where Jack meets some of Eric’s friends, and they dance to 90s hip-hop. Jack takes Eric to an indoor ice rink, and still can’t get his throat to swallow properly as Eric loops graceful circles around him. He catches him, and kisses him, and says, “I love you.” Eric pretends like there aren’t tears in his eyes, and says in return, “I’ve been loving you, longer than I can say.”

 

They bring Eric’s things to Jack’s apartment. They find places for it all, turning it from _Jack’s_ to _theirs_ , and they fuck on nearly every surface all over again. They laugh through it, and moan through it, and sometimes it’s quiet and slow. Once, when Eric comes home late from work, Jack has all the lights off and a makeshift bed on the living room floor, and they make love while staring out at the lights of the city.

 

They talk, endlessly.

 

Jack learns Eric, more deeply than he has learned anyone. He fills bottomless reaches of his mind with Eric. He wants room for more.

 

It is love, they say. It’s for life.

 

It’s two years.

 

* * *

 

For the second year in a row, neither of them use their two-month Pause quota, and decide to visit Jack’s parents for the holidays, together. They drive, taking turns at the wheel, and Eric doesn’t even complain when Jack plays Sam Cooke and gets daring enough to sing lowly at him across the gearshift. They are stopped at the border, and have to surrender their phones as identification and validity of their Relationship.

“Can’t be too careful,” the customs official tells them. “We get more yahoos than I can count, trying to skip out on their Life Partner with some Casual from a time ago.”

Jack hears his own laugh as a bark, and Eric’s as a dry sputter, and the customs official smiles and waves them through.

 

Jack clamps a firm hand over Eric’s knee as he drives.

“I love you,” he insists, and Eric says it back immediately.

 

Over the border, both of their phones light up with a notification. They are outside range. Their Break Up is set for May. They must be within range to be Matched again.

 

 

Jack grips Eric’s knee tighter, and watches snow-dusted conifers pass in repetitive rows outside his window.

 

 

* * *

 

 

To Jack’s parents, Jack introduces Eric as, “my boyfriend.” They don’t even blink, no flicker of uncertainty, and Jack wonders how much they hear about the app on Canadian news. He definitely doesn’t tell them more than they need to know: he’s been going on lots of dates; he has had a few serious relationships; he looks forward to meeting a life partner someday. They don’t hear any of those words as copyrighted terms.

 

“The app is great,” he tells them. “I meet a lot more people than I would living back home.”

 

That it’s now been seven years since Jack graduated, and seven years since he decided to use his dual citizenship to stay in the U.S., doesn’t seem to bother them. He has a steady job. He has a long-term boyfriend – “It’s two years this May, isn’t that right honey?” – and is, by all accounts, happy. They have no reason to know about the cold phantom fingers he feels closing tighter around his throat with every day that passes and Eric gets closer to being twenty-four.

 

Bob and Alicia love Eric, and they make sure that Jack knows this in no uncertain terms. They send him up to his childhood bedroom following tight hugs and warm congratulations. Jack crawls into bed beside Eric, and feels around under the covers for his closely-curled form.

“How did it get to this point?” Eric asks him, and Jack can’t give an answer to that.

 

From Thanksgiving, to Hanukkah, to Christmas, to New Year, they spend in Montréal, and count time by holidays. Between the dates they sit at the Zimmermanns’ table and celebrate, they drive, and see how far the roads go. Jack shows Eric the mountains outside of Montréal, and broader Québec, and they cross over to other provinces and he sees new places as well. They walk snowed paths, and skate on ponds, and the days are short but the nights are clear. They stay in rented cabins and chalet rooms, buried in or overlooking forests. And then they drive back to Jack’s family’s home, and show photos to his parents over dessert coffees.

 

It’s been New Year’s Day for hours, and Jack can smell the stale sweetness of champagne on Eric’s breath as he traces assured hands down his body, under the covers. Eric is making soft whines of noises, clutching at Jack in return with strength and need. He throws his head back as Jack tongues at his neck, and Jack knows he is looking through the open window above the bed to the pitch sky outside, straining for stars. When Jack turns to running kisses along Eric’s jaw and cheek, he finds his skin wet. He pulls back, and Eric’s face is shiny with tears.

“Shit. Bud, what —? I’m sorry, I—” Jack hovers uselessly over Eric’s body, hands fluttering around his face, wholly inept and uncertain. Eric shakes his head.

“No, Jack. It’s not you. I just can’t believe – five months. I only have you for five more months. I don’t know if I can stand it.” He cups Jack’s cheeks between his palms, and runs sensitive thumbs under his eyes. “I won’t be able to. I know it. I’m sorry, I just won’t.”

“No,” says Jack, firm. There is no one part he disagrees with – the whole situation, probably. Eric crying, because they will have to Break Up. Being happy in Montréal, when soon they will have to go back to their city and start their miserably long trudge to the gallows.

 

“No,” Jack says again. Then, “Maybe –”

 

* * *

 

They farewell Bob and Alicia a week into the New Year, promising to call when they reach the city and visit much sooner than next Christmas. They drive for the border, then hook a right and make for Toronto.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jack and Eric have five months. Less than, actually. Four. Three-and-a-half, maybe.

 

They drive along the border, and stop to rest at the end of each day. Eric picks strange little roadside hotels with wooden outers and lace curtains. Jack picks motels that don’t require a credit card, and boast color TV on faded signs out front. Eric spins stories to cashiers and managers and booking clerks, never straying far from the truth: this is a Break Up tour, and everything must go. Jack murmurs daydreams in the dark under the covers, tales of living together forever.

 

They take photos at tourist spots. They take the old Instax that Jack filched from his childhood wardrobe, and photograph themselves shrinking from fiberglass grizzly bears and grinning expansively on the beaches of never-ending lakes. They spread the grainy blue photos over their temporary beds, and make love until the photos stick to them and they can’t do anything but laugh.

 

They talk, endlessly, about the past and the future, whether it is immediate (“Where to next?”) or more distant (“What next?”)

 

Jack feels learned.

 

It is love, they say. It’s for life.

 

It’s three-and-a-half months, and then they cross back over the border.

 

On Eric’s birthday, they are in Seattle.

 

* * *

 

Jack and Eric Break Up on Eric’s birthday. They each activate their Pause quota on Eric’s birthday. Jack drives into Vancouver the day after, alone and single, and waits one day before he drops his phone into a trash can outside a Tim Horton’s.

 

Jack has four months of Pause.

 

Eric has four months of Pause.

 

There is a house in northern Québec, on the edge of a pond that freezes in the winter thick enough for skating. Through the windows, especially the one in the bedroom with the large King-sized bed, all the stars are visible – the busyness, and the lights. It is not a city, and it smells of wood, and rain, and the barest hint of something spiced, coming from the clever hands of the man in the kitchen, who has bright brown eyes and cheeks flushed by cold.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment! And don't feel shy about sharing it with your friends, either <3
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
